Messages - whyowhy

Thanks a ton for the replies guys. I first want to say that I talk about my post college experiences a lot, because my college grades were pretty terrible. So my intentions were to show that I have changed since then. I worked hard and got a great score on the LSATs and also worked hard at volunteering, interning and at my job. I guess, being Tibetan and growing up as a refugee is much more interesting than those things. So, I will look for ways to squeeze more of that into the essay. Once again, thanks for the feedback. Please keep them coming.

Hey guys, any feedback would be greatly appreciated here. I've been writing so many different personal statements and finally have decided to stick with this one. I know my english is a bit iffy, so don't hold back on the criticisms. Thanks again, here it is:

I am proud that I was able to graduate and become the first college graduate in my entire family. However, I still donít believe that I completely succeeded in college. I had written explanations of my college grades in my previous drafts but in the end decided to remove them. I realized no matter how legitimate they were, they were ultimately all excuses.

I was born and raised in a refugee settlement in India. Although my childhood lacked many things that one would take for granted in America, I now cherish it dearly and wouldnít change any of it if I could. My upbringing in India blessed me with multi-cultural experiences and insights that I could never imagine having being born in America. It also granted me the ability to speak Hindi, Tibetan, Nepali and a general affinity for languages which has helped me in my studies in Spanish and Mandarin.

Upon graduation, I began working in a small office for XXXXXXXXXX. My official title there was ďAssistant Office ManagerĒ but I was pretty much tasked with doing anything and everything that was needed there. I did everything from managing our office server, handling sales calls, accounting work on Quickbooks, and managing our online vendor systems with companies such as Amazon and Brooks Brothers. The hours were long (60+), the pay was great; however the job felt empty to me. After college, I had given up on my dreams of law school and a legal career. I had failed in my attempts at the LSAT and my GPA had been very lackluster. I had started believing that I didnít have it in me to put in the hard work that was needed to get to law school and succeed there. However, after several months of working at Top Circle, I started to see the hard work I was capable of and started to believe in myself once again. This was my turning point where I decided that I was going to try again and pursue law school. I handed in my two weeks-notice to my employers and immediately began searching for internship/volunteer positions in the legal field. I then, enrolled myself into an intensive LSAT prep course. I wanted to give it my all this time and knew I had to put in everything I had to have a chance of succeeding.

I wasnít able to find a legal internship that was open to non-students. However, eventually I was able to volunteer for a fellow Tibetan, XXX XXXX who had just recently opened a new solo practice. The timing was perfect, Mr. XXXX was only one of two Tibetan lawyers in New York and I was lucky enough that he had just happened to have opened shop exactly when I needed the experience. The work here was very fun and interesting for me. Most of the assignments I received were researching various legal topics. The work appealed to me a lot because I personally love investigating and research and in the process I was also able to learn many new things about the legal field. The experience I was getting here was very valuable but both Mr. XXXX and I agreed that I also needed some real experience at an actual law firm/office with multiple lawyers to see how life was for most lawyers.

So I began searching again and this time was able to secure a volunteer intern position at The Legal-Aid Society. I was placed in the civil department and mainly worked with consumer law. I had begun around the same time that the Legal-Aidís Hurricane Sandy department had been created and so I was placed here and worked mainly on this for the first few months. I felt extremely lucky at my timing because the work I did in our Sandy Relief project had been extremely gratifying and fulfilling. I believed I was fighting on the right side with the Sandy victims against all the insurance companies, contractors and even FEMA themselves. I was also given other consumer law work and had the opportunity to witness courtroom action. It was here that I learned so much about the legal field and my convictions to become a lawyer were fully enforced. I now believe I can and will be able to succeed in law school.

While I've got you here, what do you guys think of a person like me doing a diversity statement. I came to the U.S when I was 10 and was granted asylum as a refugee. I was a Tibetan refugee living in India before that. I've grown up living as a minority my whole life from India, to the States. I can also speak 5 languages, IDK if that would matter or not...